Three of the four higher-seeded teams in the WNBA playoffs won the series-opening game, setting themselves up for potential advancement to the semifinals either tonight or tomorrow night. However, the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx were the lone exception, suffering a 91-75 defeat to the No. 8 New York Liberty.
The series is now firmly in the Liberty’s control, as they’re -155 favorites on DraftKings Sportsbook to advance to the semifinals and make the Lynx the first No. 1 seed since the 2021 Connecticut Sun to lose in their opening series. A New York win in tonight’s 8:40 p.m. tipoff at Barclays Center would make Minnesota the first top overall seed ever not to win a playoff game. The series winner will play either the No. 4 Atlanta Dream or the No. 5 Washington Mystics in the semifinals.
Both teams have pretty clean injury reports for tonight’s pivotal game: the Lynx are only without Anastasiia Kosu (foot), a deep bench reserve, and the Liberty are only without Satou Sabally (concussion), who’s out for the season.
Minnesota is a 3.5-point favorite on DraftKings Sportsbook (-162 Moneyline), with the total set at 174.5 points. New York is +136 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down this 2024 WNBA Finals rematch and offer a prediction.
Lynx at Liberty Game 2 Best Bet
New York Liberty Moneyline (+136): Since the All-Star break, these teams’ net ratings are separated by just 0.2 points per 100 possessions, so there’s no reason the Liberty should be underdogs at home. Plus, the Lynx have been more than willing to give up threes, and New York has a roster full of shooters. On one hand, it’s hard not to go with a team that has three All-Stars and Napheesa Collier; on the other, the Liberty have won three of the teams’ four matchups, all by double-digit points.
Lynx at Liberty Game 2 prediction, pick
During the season, the Lynx were the far better team, finishing seven games ahead of the Liberty in the standings and posting the third-best offensive rating and fourth-best defensive rating while New York finished sixth and seventh, respectively. Minnesota saw Olivia Miles win Rookie of the Year unanimously and head coach Cheryl Reeve take home Coach of the Year, and Miles, Courtney Williams, and Natasha Howard were all named to the All-Star team. By contrast, Sabrina Ionescu, Leonie Fiebich, and Sabally missed a combined 52 games for the Liberty, and only Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones earned All-Star honors. But New York’s Game 1 win should’ve come as no surprise; the Liberty beat the Lynx in two of their three regular-season matchups, and Minnesota’s only win came by just five points.
New York has been far more dominant in the paint since the All-Star break. Across that span, both teams have gotten to the basket at roughly a league-average rate, with the Lynx attempting 20.1 shots per game within five feet and the Liberty 20.7, but New York has finished much more efficiently (70.7% to 63.4%). Napheesa Collier, a two-time MVP runner-up, returned from bilateral ankle surgery right before the All-Star break but has made fewer than 60% of her layups since then. Additionally, Minnesota’s rim protection has been a problem; although it has conceded fewer close-range tries than the Liberty since the All-Star break, opponents shot the fifth-highest percentage against the Lynx and the fifth-lowest mark against New York. 2024 DPOY Collier and 2019 DPOY Howard are solid, but so are seven-time All-Defensive honoree Stewart and 2021 MVP Jones. In Game 1, the Liberty shot 13-for-20 within five feet, and the Lynx shot just seven-for-16, so while Minnesota is more due for positive regression, the fact that it only got to the rim 16 times isn’t encouraging.
New York has also been utterly dominant on the glass in the second half of the season. In that span, the Liberty rank second league-wide in rebounding percentage. They won the rebounding battle, 38-23, in Game 1, but they actually won despite losing the rebounding battle in the teams’ final regular season meeting. That improvement might not be entirely coincidental; Han Xu, the tallest player in the WNBA (six-foot-11), averaged 12.5 minutes per game before the All-Star break and 15.6 thereafter. The Lynx should have a small advantage in transition on both sides of the ball, as they won the turnover battle in Game 1, but they struggled to get to the charity stripe in the second half of the season, which could be a problem against New York’s disciplined defense.
Three-point shooting will be a critical swing factor, as the Liberty attempted the second-most three-pointers per game after the All-Star break, and Minnesota attempted the seventh-most. The Lynx were slightly more efficient on such looks, converting them at a 38.7% rate while New York made 35.0%, so given that the Liberty shot 13-for-25 (52.0%) from deep in Game 1, they could be due for some regression. Still, in the second half of the season, Minnesota was willing to give up triples, conceding the second-most attempts per game and the eighth-highest percentage. The Lynx’s propensity to allow triples should continue to be a good matchup against New York’s lineup, which features several elite shooters in Fiebich (42.5% career accuracy), Jones (38.4%0, and Marine Johannes (37.8%), as well as a dangerous movement threat in Sabrina Ionescu. The team that has been more accurate from deep has won all four games between them so far.
It’s likely that the Liberty’s shooting will come back to earth eventually and that Minnesota will start to finish better, but they have 16 points of margin to play with. After the All-Star break (a 15-game sample size that represents more than a third of the regular season), the Lynx had a net rating just 0.2 points per 100 possessions better than New York’s, and while Minnesota had a better net rating on the road than the Liberty did at home, the crowd at Barclays Center should be rocking. At +136, it’s worth backing the 2024 title-winners to stay hot for one more night and complete the sweep.
